You know Kathy, we’ve been fairly blunt with you today. Flippant, too. And it’s tough when people talk to/about you that way. I’m sorry for that.
If we could cut through all the rhetoric for a second, I’d like to commiserate with you. A little over 4 years ago, I was a very dedicated Christian. I had some doubts, but they weren’t about the Christian faith, just my understanding of it.
I felt like there were problems in my beliefs about the gospel. I believed in a literal Hell, and I believed a lot of people would be going there. But I had a very hard time squaring that with a loving God. I had matured enough to realize that most people were pretty decent. Not perfect, certainly, but good people who cared about others and typically wanted to do the right thing. I didn’t think such people deserved Hell. In fact, like Paul, I often thought that if God would accept it, I’d gladly go to Hell myself, if it would save my friends and family. And if everyone else could be added into that deal too, even better.
So if I felt that way, could I be more compassionate than God? Of course not. But I had a very hard time finding anything in the Bible that backed up an idea that most people, regardless of creed or belief would be saved.
I didn’t give up though. I knew about Universalists, so I decided to read up on their reasons for thinking everyone went to Heaven. It sounded good, but I just wasn’t convinced by their arguments. I just didn’t see the Bible teaching such a doctrine, and I still believed the Bible was the inerrant word of God.
I was in a state of flux.
And that’s the position I was in when I first ran across articles that pointed out flaws in the Bible. I was shocked by what the articles said, but since I didn’t have any answers against them at the moment, I got busy with research. I didn’t even comment on the articles — I just went to work. It wasn’t about winning any arguments; it was simply a search for answers.
I think that frame of mind I was in made all the difference for me. Deep down, I was already struggling. The doctrines I had long believed in, and even taught to others, didn’t fit together in my mind as well as they once had.
That’s probably the difference between you and me. I get the feeling that you question nothing about your faith. Not trying to put you down about that; just making an observation.
For me, discovering that the Bible was not the perfect book I had always thought it to be, and finding out that some of these church leaders I had always admired knew of these problems but never spoke of them, helped me make sense of a lot of things. It took time, and it wasn’t easy to come to the realizations, but everything finally fell into place for me when I realized Christianity was just another religion. For the first time, I finally understood the sentiment of that line from “Amazing Grace,” I once was blind, but now I see…
I don’t know if that’s helpful to you at all. Maybe one day it will be. Maybe one day, something will make you ask a few questions, and you’ll think back to those non- believers who were so insistent that Christianity was certainly not the only way. If that day comes, I hope you’ll find this exchange helpful and realize you’re not alone.
Finding Truth 
“Faith is Pretending To Know Things You Don’t Know” ~Peter Boghossian
“Faith is believing what you know ain’t so. ~Mark Twain
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LMFAO…Now we’re arguing about the make believe town of Nazareth!
Hell’s bells, this should be fun.
Interesting how that lying sack of excrement, Eusebius lived less than a day’s donkey ride from the supposed location and yet he never visited his god’s home town?
Amazing!
Shoot…I wonder how many Beatle’s fans visited the Cavern in Liverpool over the same number of years?
Oh, and neither are there any records of anyone visiting the place until around the fourth century when good old Constantine’s mum decided to pay a visit.
And …abracadabra….Religious Tourism was born. LOL….
You gotta love the Romans, right?
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I gave the coordinates to the site Kathy linked – if you know anyone who can walk 18 miles in 30 minutes, I’d be interested in meeting him/her.
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“Wow! That was the most creative twisting of words you’ve done yet!
So if the evidence is unseen, it really means that it’s there, it’s just not seen.”
WOWZA!! You really are THAT dense. Its evidence of the thing not seen
The crayon was not enough I can see…..try this and maybe the neurons will fire
You can’t find your phone. It can’t be seen anywhere. The phone is unseen. SO you call the number and it rings. the ringing is evidence of your phone unseen. Want another one? Movement of air. You cannot see it but the curtain moving is evidence of the air movement unseen
Do you get it now? If not check Neuro and find out if there are any space disturbances in your area. The rest of your nonsense? Alas if i tried to respond to all you possess It would be a full time job.
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“I gave the coordinates to the site Kathy linked – ”
So you never studied for yourself but were making statements about there being no such place nearby. I suggest before you post again you check what a fool you just made of yourself. I’m doing you a favor. that way you come up with some excuse to save face.
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Nan,
“OBJECTIVITY (judgment based on observable phenomena and uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices) and FAITH have nothing to do with one another.”
It seems you’re trying to claim that evidence can’t be considered (with or without objectivity) when having faith. What is your reference or “reasoning” for this claim? I don’t understand.
This seems like a really desperate, long way to go in attempting to discredit evidence for God’s existence.
“There IS no observable phenomena to prove God exists. You cannot apply objectivity to faith because they are not compatible. ”
I’m not applying objectivity to my faith Nan.. I’m applying it to the known facts.
“The “evidence” you have presented is not “objective;” it is based entirely on your “faith.”. ”
Sorry.. the evidence I’ve presented has nothing to do with my faith.. it has to do with actual facts.
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A missing phone and the movement of air are far cries from an “invisible God” that the “evidence” says is there but not there — ‘cuz no matter how far and wide you look, you ain’t gonna’ see the invisible. Except by faith, of course … that evidence of the unseen.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave: When first we practise to deceive!
Ron, I like the quote by Peter Boghossian. So true.
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“A missing phone and the movement of air are far cries from an “invisible God”
In my examples they are things that are unseen to which there can be evidence of their existence despite not being seen. Whether you admit it or not thats what the passage is saying and your claim that it is saying evidence is not needed has been defeated and shown up to be as clueless as I said it was………… the end.
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“when good old Constantine’s mum decided to pay a visit.”
Hey Ark, it should actually say Constantine’s mum decided to pay $$$ a visit. Funny, everywhere she went during her trip to the holy land , no one seemed to know much of anything about the Jesus Story until they saw bags of $$$ in her wagon. 🙂 Oddly enough their memories became quite vivid ! 🙂
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Arch said:
““And science has NOT proven that we evolved from pond scum. That’s an UNPROVEN theory.” – Science doesn’t say we evolved from pond scum, Kathy – if you’d take your head out of the sand long enough to actually read about evolution, you’d know that.”
Sorry to be the one to break it to you Arch, (not really) but, you came from pond scum according to evolution. This is another good example of liberals/ atheist’s narrow thinking.. you all never look outside your tiny box.. because it would force you to accept what you don’t want to to be true. Science is your “security blanket”… and Neil Tyson is your daddy tucking you in at night, telling you stories of monkeys.
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“Oh, and neither are there any records of anyone visiting the place until around the fourth century when good old Constantine’s mum decided to pay a visit.
And …abracadabra….Religious Tourism was born. LOL….
You gotta love the Romans, right?’
I guess so cause them Romans were good though. Apparently at least somebody did visit the umm make believe spot
http://www.archaeology.org.il/news65.html
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“Sorry.. the evidence I’ve presented has nothing to do with my faith.. it has to do with actual facts.” – you keep saying things like that, Kathy, and when I ask you for the facts, you say, “the martyrs” – I bypass for the moment that a person giving their life for a delusion is hardly evidence of anything, and I ask, “Which martyrs, how did they die, and what are your sources for this information?” and I get crickets.
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Arch, re: Nazareth and the cliff
28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.”
I really don’t know what you are having so much trouble with.. it’s pretty clear.
In order to use this to “disprove” the Bible, you’ve got make a lot of assumptions.. which is typical.. Nate does this a lot also.. as do all atheists.
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@ Mike
LOl…Yeah, the good le IAA. What a plo ker you are, Mike.
What next? The funerary lamps, the burial caves, the Caesaria inscription or a signed stone from Steve Pfann that says “Jesus woz here” ?
Ever read the Nazareth Farm Report?
Really, dont chuck this tourist garbage on the floor Mike, please.
We’re not credulous d’heads like you.
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KATHY REGARDING THE CLIFF CLIFFHANGER
A) As you know this set doesn’t do any research into the text. the word cliff does not appear in greek. its supplied as a noun because the verb means to throw headlong or down a precipice. cliff or height.
You’ll see variations in translation here
http://biblehub.com/luke/4-29.htm
So it hardly requires an official cliff
B) mount precipice unless you guys were referring to another place is not 6 hours walk away. Google maps puts it at about 30-40 minutes walk from inside Nazareth (presently) or less than 30 since he was already outside of the city
C) The other more popular skeptics claim is that there was no Nazereth at the time of Jesus which I believe Ark is trying to refer to but recent archaeological finds (and the fact that Nazareth has not been very welll studied due the modern day city being over it) have made the claim suspect at the least. I’ve linked to one already a few post before this
SO…. so far, down is going yet another claim of theirs against the Bible and its yet another example of how poorly this group does research
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@Kathy
ER..is no evidence for the foundational claims of Christianity.
NONE.
There is not a shred of verifiable evidence for any of the supernatural claims of Christianity. In fact, there is almost no evidence for the non- supernatural as well.
But once again, if you would care to present this evidence you claim then I/we will consider it.
So far, Kathy, you have not produced a single piece.
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katakrēmnizō (Srongs 2630)
– to cast down a precipice
– to through down headlong
precipice
– A very steep rock face or cliff, especially a tall one.
Origin: late 16th century (denoting a headlong fall): from French précipice or Latin praecipitium</em? 'abrupt descent', from praeceps, praecip(it)– ‘steep, headlong’.
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Mikey, I totally understood your analogies. I just don’t think they’re valid.
The majority of believers understand the passage in Hebrews perfectly. They know that what it’s saying is that faith means believing in something that can’t be seen, i.e., an invisible God.
No matter how you try to twist it, there IS NO EVIDENCE for an invisible God.
And Kathy, again, this is what you wrote:
Faith is something that grows.. and it starts with applying OBJECTIVITY to the information/ facts we DO have… aka the EVIDENCE.
Don’t you get it? Faith does not start with applying objectivity (judgment based on observable phenomena) because, as I’ve been discussing with Mike, God cannot be observed. “His” existence can only be based on FAITH. There are no “actual facts” that can be presented as evidence of God’s existence.
Of course, believers will contend that the bible is evidence, but then we’re back to the validity of the bible. And around and around we go.
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“LOl…Yeah, the good le IAA. What a plo ker you are, Mike.”
LOL….Who cares about your I only support finds that back my thesis claims. 🙂
“Ever read the Nazareth Farm Report?”
ROFL………Salm right?…..If so ……You funny
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“katakrēmnizō (Srongs 2630)
– to cast down a precipice
– to through down headlong”
Thanks Ron…..exactly what I said. thank for doing the copy and past work for me
“precipice
– A very steep rock face or cliff, especially a tall one
…..Origin: late 16th century”
Ooops….definition form the16th century can’t be forced too much on the NT era.
but still good job on the strong’s copy and paste 🙂
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“The majority of believers understand the passage in Hebrews perfectly. They know that what it’s saying is that faith means believing in something that can’t be seen, i.e., an invisible God.”
and who said that God was visible? Your poor soul. How old are you? I never said a thing about God being visible but the evidence for him does not have to be or be nonexistent and the verse does not say the evidence is invisible.
I’m sorry. You are much too dense to have a conversation with.
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“Sorry to be the one to break it to you Arch, (not really) but, you came from pond scum according to evolution.” – I was really hoping Kathy, that you wouldn’t demonstrate your ignorance of evolution so blatantly, but I can see that my hope was in vain.
Who tucks you in at night, telling you stories of talking snakes and talking donkeys and a invisible magic man who lives in the sky?
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“Who tucks you in at night, telling you stories of talking snakes and talking donkeys and a invisible magic man who lives in the sky?”
The white everything out of absolutely nothing Fairy maybe?
What happened to the 6 hour walk from Nazareth to MT Precipice Arch?
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“I really don’t know what you are having so much trouble with.. it’s pretty clear.” – the cliff you gave me a link to, Mt Kedumim, is 18.05 miles from Nazareth – are you saying that “it’s pretty clear” that they walked Yeshua 18.05 miles, just to throw him off a cliff?
That’s part of your problem, Kathy, and you just can’t see it, you read, “29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the clif” and you go, “Oh, OK.” See, we don’t do that, we say, “Oh really, was there a cliff at Nazareth? Let’s see –” Then we do research, we look and see that Nazareth is in fact in a bowl-shaped valley, and there is no cliff anywhere nearby, so we know that verse simply isn’t true.You are incapable of doing that, preferring instead to keep your head firmly in the sand..
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“Then we do research, we look and see that Nazareth is in fact in a bowl-shaped valley, and there is no cliff anywhere nearby, so we know that verse simply isn’t true.You are incapable of doing that, preferring instead to keep your head firmly in the sand..”
ROFL……HAHAHAHAHAHA.
He actually wrote telling Kathy her head was in the sand with his 6 hour walk to MT precipice claim still out there.
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